


people just untie themselves

by plethora



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Hair Pulling, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 05:16:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4209330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plethora/pseuds/plethora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Friends with benefits fic. </p>
<p>"We're not gonna do the cliche thing of developing feelings for each other are we?" </p>
<p>Thanasi frowns and tangles their legs together.</p>
<p>"Go back to sleep." he says uncomfortably, but he doesn't move away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. hold on to your heart; you'll keep it safe

Thanasi likes getting his hair pulled. It isn't a secret. Nick had found it out when they were making out post French Open in some nice but fairly bland hotel room. Both stripped to their underwear and Thanasi had flopped in his lap, still all giddy had gone hey, let's make out – and really, he's not going to turn down an offer like that. Especially when they were both kinda hard and Thanasi kept doing tiny little circling motions with his hips that were sending Nick's mind to some truly terrible places.

So he'd moved his hands away from where they'd been coaxing Thanasi's jaw a little wider to kiss him deeper and threaded them into his hair - only, he must have caught a tangle or something, because he'd tugged a little without meaning to, and Thanasi shuddered so hard he feels it and made a gorgeous, bitten-off little cry into his mouth. 

And Nick isn't one to look a gifthorse in the mouth. 

-

Not that he gets much opportunity to use Thanasi's new found weakness against him. They'd parted later that day, and when it comes up again it's on the eve of another goodbye. 

He's only here on a flying visit, and for the little time they have together, Thanasi's getting clingy. He lays on Nick's chest after he's showered before bed and doesn't say anything, just sprawls out like a sad, especially clingy octopus, limbs askew.

Nick traces the tan line on the back of his shoulder with his fingers and watches the goosebumps rise on his arms. 

“I wish you didn't have to go.” he says, muffled from how he's digging his nose into Nick's breastbone. “you've only just got here.”

Nick makes a non-committal noise. He doesn't really know what to say. If Thanasi was a girl he was seeing he'd take this as needing reassurance they were still together, still in love, shit like that. But Thanasi isn't a girl, and they aren't together – he doesn't think. He doesn't want to ask, because if he's honest with himself, some bit of him is afraid of the answer. 

So he's just stuck in a circle of doubt, and it's making him grumpy. 

“Can't help that.” he replies eventually, and it comes out shorter than he intended. Some ugly, jealous bit of him rears its head then, and before he can stop himself - “Still, bet you can't wait to get home. I'm sure there'll be plenty of girls who want to give you a hero's welcome and distract you.”

Thanasi flinches. 

-

They fuck later, Thanasi on his stomach and one of Nick's arms around his hips to hold him up.

It's oddly slow – for them, anyway. 

Unhurried thrusts and Thanasi grinding back so they're almost spooned flush together. Nick brushes his thumb over the shorter hair at the back of his neck and squeezes at his nape. Thanasi's thighs shake.

When Nick grabs at his hair properly (threading his fingers through and slowly increasing the pressure) Thanasi swears and cranes his neck to try and kiss Nick's forearm, mouth all bite-red and swollen. 

“Harder.” he pants, dropping his head again to feel the pull. 

Nick hisses and digs his fingers into his hips, blunt nails biting deeper. He complies. 

-

Nick sneaks out to get his taxi back to the airport before Thanasi even wakes, because he's a coward and he knows it. The further away from him he gets, the worse the heavy feeling in his chest gets. He crams his earphones in when he's on the train and does his best to put this entire... _thing_ from his head. It doesn't work.


	2. pockets full of stones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is definitely a bit of an Angst chapter, because these two are idiots who are too stubborn (and frightened) to actually sit down and talk. Also, sorry this took so long to update. Real life got in the way of me writing truly heinous things about tennis players, which was very rude of it.

Nick scoffs down a sandwich at the airport when he's landed, more to appease the grumbling of his stomach than want to eat. He swallows the last bite carefully. Even with his hunger appeased, the hollow ache in his chest remains. 

This is bad, he thinks, and taps his foot impatiently as he waits for his taxi home. A little girl next to him with ginger hair and a rain mac on is fascinated by the reflective bit on his sneakers. His phone vibrates in his pocket and he goes to snatch it so quickly that she jumps and scuttles around the other side of her mother. 

Nick wipes the rain off his screen and looks. 

It's Thanasi. Of course it is. Who else? 

A picture message that captures the empty, wrinkled sheets beside him and a flash of his ribs and arm and stomach, such is the strange angle. 

Nick stares. It's one of those moments where even though it is very benign, feels private and precious. Nick wants to stare at it until he's committed absolutely every bit of it to memory, a quiet and private little thought that he can fold up and tuck away in his head for later.

The sense memory of being curled up in bed with Thanasi on days like this hits him like a freight train. That specific kind of murky, soft light that filters through the bland hotel curtains, Thanasi half on his chest, half not. Covering him like a blanket and waking him up gently with kisses along his jaw most of the time. Other – rarer- times, he'd bite. Nip Nick awake and nearly beg for him to touch him, to just lay hands on his skin. 

He swallows heavily and comes back to the present, locking his phone without replying. He'll sort it later. For all he knows, Thanasi is already off trying to woo the local girls and fill the gap in his bed. Bile rises in his throat. 

When his cab finally arrives he shuts down all the driver's attempts to converse and slouches down, hood pulled up close around his face.

When his phone goes, it's Thanasi again, asking if he's landed safe. 

_I like you a lot and I don't know what to do with that_ he wants to say, but that'd be ridiculous. And surely Thanasi already knows that? He sighs and settles for a simple yes and smiley face. He's fucked either way.

When he finally gets in he shuts all the blinds and flops straight into bed, phone forgotten in his rucksack pocket. 

-

Thanasi dodges practice all day and pretends he's sick. He knows he's being a little shit, but he can't face it today. Things with Nick have been getting weird. 

Well. 

Weird on his part. When it started, it was a stupid drunken make out mistake and falling asleep smushed together and not freaking out the next day. Nick kissing him on the mouth again when he left, casual and soft, smiling. 

And it had rattled along fine forever. They still diligently went to practice and smashed it out on the court and made terrible decisions about what alcohol to drink on nights out. It had worked. Nice and simple. 

Then he'd started feel something. It was odd. He'd stopped being interested in anyone else, men or women, and it hadn't been for lack of opportunity. Bloody hell, he'd had people slip him their numbers and flirt so heavily he'd cringed a little, but hadn't the urge to take them up on the offer.

Instead he'd just pined and savoured every moment they were together, even the times that should have been dull. Waking up with mutual hangovers and not being able to move for the throbbing headaches and nausea shouldn't be something he treasures, and yet. The fact they were able to just lay together, spooned up tight with his lanky legs entwined with Nick's, drifting in and out of sleep, abusing room service when they finally felt human again. 

Or the time he'd visited Nick back home and they'd movie marathoned the shittest films netflix had to offer. Sharknado 2: The Sharkening, Killer Bear Strikes London, Big Ass Spider, all streamed so they could crack each other up taking the piss of them. It was such a cliché weekend. Hands brushing in the giant bowl of popcorn Nick had somehow miraculously made without burning the house down (his cooking skills just about stretch to opening a tin). Making out during the boring bits – which to be fair, was almost all of the film – and nodding off only to wake to the titles rolling. 

Thanasi huffs and kicks his legs free of the sheets, feeling trapped all of a sudden. He shouldn't be like this, but still the little shadows of memories keep coming, ones where his cheeks turn pink just remembering. 

Burnt into his retinas is the way Nick had looked when he fucked Thanasi on his back, intense and happy, stomach muscles twitching. He'd fingered him open with mind-numbing slowness and care and Thanasi'd come embarrassingly unexpectedly, pooled all messy on his tummy when Nick pushed in a third. Nick had just smirked at him, self-satisfied, and bitten the inside of his thigh. He hadn't let up, though. Keeping going even though Thanasi was shaking a bit with the intensity, sobbing when he finally pushed in and thighs trembling where they were wrapped around Nick's waist. 

He gets goosepimples just thinking about it, an unearthly warmth curing in his chest. 

It turns cold when he thinks of Nick being with someone else. Which he probably is. Thanasi is good for when they're together. Happy to spread his legs, Nick himself had once said to him, laughing and pinning him against the door to kiss him. It had been a joke, but he wonders how true it rings. How if there was someone else willing he'd not feel any guilt about going with them. 

It burns him up from the inside that he's probably right. Nick's free with his affection, easy hugs and the like, and Thanasi wants to stamp about like a child and go _no, mine._ He wonders what Nick's reaction would be if he said it. _I'm yours, right? Just like you're mine._

There's an extra stab of hurt when he can picture so clearly Nick freaking out. Withdrawing his affection suddenly, pulling the rug from beneath him and not giving him chance to adjust and commit everything to memory before it gets taken away. Or maybe he'd laugh. Genuinely take it as a joke. 

That's worse, somehow. That he wouldn't even consider it a serious declaration. Because really, Thanasi is kidding himself, torturing himself over-thinking it. He should just be happy with what he has, no matter how long it lasts.

He isn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter should be along much more quickly than this one. I'm here [x]  
> on tumblr if you wanna say hi!


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